You're Still a Bad Man, Aren't You?
A sign outside the “Academy Awards of porn,” Las Vegas, NV | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
Read "You're Still a Bad Man, Aren't You?," the latest edition of my newsletter, "The Valley," here. It’s about the Ulysses of Porn Valley. Subscribe to my newsletter here.
Here’s an excerpt:
About 23 years ago, when I set foot on an adult movie set for the first time, it occurred to me that someone should write a novel set in Porn Valley. Since, a few have tried it, mostly men, and mostly to poor effect. Take, for example, Chuck Palahniuk’s Snuff, a terrible novel in which terrible things happen and nobody wins. Or, there’s Irvine Welsh’s Porno, which is also a novel and bad. And let’s not forget Martin Amis’s Yellow Dog, which is also a novel and bad, but at least he did the legwork first and visited the adult industry for the now defunct Talk magazine to produce this work of journalism about it.
Suffice to say, the world is still waiting for the Ulysses of Porn Valley.
About me. To hire me, read this and then email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read The Hustler Diaries here.
Things I Did While Self-Isolating
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Revised a podcast series proposal
Wrote a book proposal
Started a novel
Wrote a short story
Wrote a podcast episode pitch
Launched a newsletter: “The Valley”
Wrote a submission for a “Modern Love” New York Times series on self-isolating
Took a lot of photographs
Posed naked on the internet
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I Get Email
Image via Geology
Hello Miss Breslin,
My name is [redacted]. I am from India. I have completed bachelor's degree from [redacted]. My age 23 male straight. From last few years I have been thinking about to go into porn industry. But society, self respect stops me to do that. Now after lot of thinking I decided to go into porn industry is confirm. I want to make a good career in porn industry. As a fresher I have no experience. But I know all the consequences and ready to work hard for a brighter future in porn industry.
So please help me or guide me to get into porn industry. It's my humble request to you ma'am. I am also ready to work for free. Because I have no experience. I want to learn and become an expert. Please reply me ma'am. I am waiting.
Your lovely friend
[redacted]
Blue
The Solodemic
Masked Mannequin, Burbank, CA | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
Last week, I came across a “Modern Love” call on The New York Times website. They were looking for personal stories from people who are self-isolating solo. I wrote my version relatively quickly and submitted it online. I don’t know yet whether it will be published, but I’ll post an update here. If The New York Times doesn’t publish it, I’ll either submit it elsewhere or publish it on my blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
After I got divorced in October 2017, I waited a few months, and then I started dating. Since, I've gone out on exactly 22 first dates. I know this because I kept a list. Or, more specifically, I maintained a list of what the men I went out on dates with did for a living.
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My Life in Pink
For my latest newsletter, I wrote about posing naked for Nikola Tamindzic’s long-distance portrait series: “I Am Here, and You Are Where You Are.” Don’t subscribe to my newsletter yet? You can do that here.
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The Hustler Diaries Part 6: How to Pitch a Podcast Series
Awhile back, I created a pitch for a podcast series. It wasn’t that difficult. Or, I should say, it wasn’t as hard as doing a book proposal. (Tip: If you ever think something is hard, then think of something harder. Then you will feel like you are doing something comparatively easy. Emphasis on comparatively.)
Here’s how to do it:
Come up with a great concept
If you want to do a podcast series that’s not you conducting boring interviews with people or you nattering on about something that you think is interesting but no one else finds interesting, you should conceptualize a podcast series that’s about something smart, and compelling, and informative. (I won’t share my concept here, but it’s related to my nonfiction book project.) My series is a documentary series. Maybe yours is historical, or true crime, or science. Or all those things. Once you have a great idea, seek out five of your friends, but only reach out to friends who you consider to be your more honest and straightforward friends. Friends who blow sunshine up your ass are not helpful in this context. (Call them next time you get dumped or whatever.) You want friends who “speak their mind” or are sometimes told they are “cruel.” If the assholes you know find your podcast series idea interesting, you might be on to something. Remember friends are helpful. Lying to your face isn’t helpful. If you’ve shopped your ideas around to your crabby, smart friends and gotten the thumb’s-up, it’s time to move forward.
Bang out that podcast proposal
The best thing about podcast proposals is that they aren’t that long. Mine is maybe 12 pages. It includes a one-page overview, a one-page description of the format, several pages that outline what each episode will be about, and my bio. I includes an audio sample and a news article that pertains to my project. The two most challenge parts of the proposal are the overview and the outline. The challenge of the overview is making it succinct and engaging. The challenge of the outline is making it fresh (not just repeating whatever was in the overview) and telling a story that unfolds over the series’ episodes to deliver something new to the listeners by its end. If you spend more than like a month working on this, you’re taking too long. Don’t overthink it. This isn’t brain surgery. This is a podcast series.
Shove it out the door
Once I was done with my podcast series pitch, I delivered it, in PDF form, to my agent. She suggested some revisions, which I made. Then she sent the podcast pitch out to a couple of the biggest producers of podcasts. My first meeting with one of those producers is tomorrow. We’ll see what happens. At this point, you are the parent of a small, weird child you are attempting to give up for adoption—or at least co-parenting. Believe in the kid, and if you’re lucky, someone will love that four-legged, five-eyed, two-headed creature as much as you do.
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Isolation Selfie
The Hustler Diaries Part 5: How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal
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Last week, I completed a draft of my nonfiction book proposal and sent it to my agent. Now, the waiting begins. Here’s what I learned along the way:
Do your research
Nonfiction book proposals follow a template. There’s an overview, an author’s bio, a marketing plan, a comparative analysis, and an outline. There may be additional things, like a sample chapter. You can learn all about these bits and pieces on Google. The main thing I discovered this time around is the briefer the better. In previous drafts, I’ve over-delivered (which is to say: I tried to stuff it with too many things) or over-sold (in which case, it sounded more like puffery than promise). This time, I was more reserved, more elegant, more reasonable. I’d rather by a used car from the latter than the former. Wouldn’t you?
Go big or go home
Sometimes it’s hard to emotionally commit to a proposal. It is, after all, a proposal. Rejection haunts the hallways of your mind, and you’re just not sure if you’re giving someone you’ve never met (in this case, an editor) what they want. I think this is the part I struggled with the most. In earlier drafts, it was too memoir-y. Then it go too impersonal. This time, I believe I struck a middle ground. But the key was taking the time to realize how I wanted to tell the story. If you keep trying to figure out how they want you to tell your story, you’ll never end up telling your story at all. You’ll wind up delivering the story they wanted to hear.
Let it go
Last Tuesday, I realized it was done. I took a final pass at it, and then I emailed it to my agent. Typically, this is the hardest part. The waiting. The not knowing. The uncertainty of it. Which is why I’ve busied myself with other things. Like this blog. Or a movie. Or taking walks outside, where the roses are totally in bloom.
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Which Novel Should I Write?
Over in my Instagram Stories (they’ll be archived under the Highlight called “Spring”), I’m asking my followers which novel I should write. Head over to Instagram to cast your vote for the opening line that you find most inspiring.
The Hustler Dairies Part 4: Launch a Newsletter
I’d been thinking about launching a newsletter for a while, but I hadn’t done it. Now is the right time to do the thing that you’ve long thought about doing. If not now, then when? You could use the time you’ve spent thinking about not having done the thing to actually do the thing. It will be easier than you think to get it done. At least, that’s what I found when I sat down to do some research and launched my newsletter.
Do what’s easy
Let’s not make things any more complicated than they should be, shall we? After all, perfect is the enemy of good. From the outset, I figured I’d probably use Mailchimp or Substack. I was generally aware of the former, which I think is maybe better if you are a business, and I’d been reading more about the latter lately, which I think is maybe better if you are a writer. I decided to go with Substack because: it looked easy to use, it had a straightforward subscriber model, it was initially free while I was working out the kinks. From what I read, it seemed like the best thing to do was to have it be free to subscribers for at least the first 90 days. Then you can make some of it or all of it for paying subscribers. The overhead is zero.
Do something, anything
I decided to call my newsletter “The Valley.” The tagline is: “Reports from the epicenter of the universe.” You can sign up here. It’s about Los Angeles, the Valley (where I live), and my life as a writer. TBH, I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to be about. So I left myself a lot of latitude to figure it out as I went along. The first one was supposed to be an introduction, “Welcome to the Valley,” but it came out sort of a hot mess. I wrote a draft of it, then butchered that, and it has kind of a Frankenstein feel. Maybe a less hearty soul would’ve given up at this point, but I’ve been a writer so long that I’ve come to expect that not everything will be perfect. Then I hit the publish button. Off I went! I was doing the thing I hadn’t been doing.
Do like a peacock
After that, I shared the link on my various social media accounts, and my buddy gave me a nice shout out, and people started signing up. What a fine thing, the internet is. One day, you are doing no newsletter. A couple hours later, you are doing a newsletter. I intend to publish them once a week, probably on Fridays. BTW, I was very inspired by photographer Noah Kalina’s newsletter, which is awesome, so sign up for his.
The Hustler Diaries Part 3: Sell Your Story
It’s easy to have a lot of ideas about things you want to sell, and a lot harder to turn those ideas into a products. Oftentimes, what you’re selling is your story. Whether it’s the story of your company, the story of your product, or the story of your brand, it’s still a story. Stories are important because people love stories. Stories make people feel something. And when people feel something, it makes them want to be engaged with the thing that made them feel. (Your company / your product / your brand.)
Here’s one story I sold:
Make it something you love
A wrote a short story called “The Tumor.” It’s about a bad man, a malignant wife, and an anthropomorphic tumor. I wrote it relatively quickly, and then it lived in a .doc. I really like this story, so I decided to sell it.
Make it beautiful
To sell it, I recruited several people to turn the story into something beautiful. People like beautiful things. Beauty makes people feel a certain way: wonder, awe, excitement. I worked with a copy editor, an artist, and a designer to turn my story into a beautifully designed thing. It went from being a story to being a Story.
Make it easy
To sell it, I turned to Gumroad. I believe this was a recommendation from my photographer friend Clayton Cubitt. Gumroad is incredibly easy to use, and they pay you out in a very easy way. It’s just, well … effortless. I also used Pay What You Want pricing, which means people pay at least $1 for it, but can pay more.
To date, I’ve sold 159 copies of “The Tumor” for a total of $867.50.
Not bad for a story that once lived inside my head.
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The Hustler Diaries Part 2: Stay in Your Lane
Porn Star, Las Vegas, NV | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
One thing I’ve learned through being self-employed, especially as a writer, is to stay in your lane. When you wander too far out of your lane, or try to occupy to many lanes, you get lost. Here’s how my role as a now senior contributor to Forbes has evolved over time, and how I recently redefined my lane.
Make it real
When I first started blogging for the Forbes website, each blog had a name. Mine was “Pink Slipped.” I’d been downsized, and I focused on the gig economy. The blog was quite popular because I wrote about what was going with my gig career, as it was happening. That sense of urgency and unexpectedness gave it juice. My blog with that angle was quite popular, and it was cited by Katie Couric and others.
Keep it fresh
Sometime in 2018, the editor of the Lifestyle section of the Forbes site reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to be the editor of a new section that would cover Vices. I refocused my own blog to fit that niche. So my blog focused on the business of vice, including gambling, sex, firearms, cannabis, food, and alcohol. That pushed me out of my comfort zone. But at times it felt like a very, very wide lane.
Do what you know
Today, I’m no longer editing the Vices section, but I still blog on the site. For me, something had become less fresh about trying to cover so many topics. So this week I asked my editor if it would be OK if I covered just one beat: the business of sex. I’ve been covering this beat for many years as a journalist, so this is my comfort zone. Of course, I can write about other things on other platforms, but it felt like it would be clarifying for me to just—well, pick a lane and stay in it, at least in that venue. So keep an eye out for more to come here.
Want to hire me? Learn more here or email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read The Hustler Diaries here.
The Hustler Diaries Part 1: And Now We Begin
Susannah Breslin shared a post on Instagram: "👀 #burbank" * Follow their account to see 5,291 posts.
I’ve spent the last 20 years working for myself and mostly working from home. So, in my case, the pandemic work situation isn’t exactly outside of my wheelhouse. In fact, I know this wheelhouse very well. Here’s my first post in “The Hustler Diaries,” where I’ll be sharing my expertise. Today, I share how I’ve spent my time so far, why you really should do that thing you’ve been putting off forever, and the key to creating a strategic plan that will work for the unicorn that is you.
Do something you love
I spent the first chunk of my self-isolation time revising a nonfiction book proposal. That was completed a few days ago. Then I sent it to my agent at CAA. If you are an INFP, like me, this stage of self-isolation will cause you no problems, and you will probably say things to people like: “I was born to do this!”
Take care of what you’ve been putting off forever
Because a scammer jacked susannahbreslin.com, I didn’t own it. For years, I’d been hosting my website on susannahbreslin.net, which is not a good look. Last December, I bought susannahbreslin.com. But I hadn’t transferred my site to that new URL. In addition, I was having a problem with my site’s security certificate. Luckily, I connected with Jo of Brent & Jo Studio. She fixed my problem at a reasonable price, easily and quickly. (She’s great!) Now you are reading me on susannahbreslin.com, and that pesky security certificate issue has been resolved. Sometimes when you find yourself unable to avoid certain things, that’s the perfect time to do whatever you’ve been avoiding forever.
Launch your strategic plan
Yesterday, I published this post: “Hire Me.” I’m a writer, an editor, and an executive coach. That post was the first step of my strategic plan. Historically, I’ve found that when I’ve faced the biggest challenges, I’ve made the most progress. The key is ignoring a lot of the advice that others will impart to you. Instead, the trick is doing what you think you should do. Everybody else’s strategic plan is worthless. Your strategic plan, should you chose to follow it, is a goldmine.
Want to hire me? Learn more here or email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read The Hustler Diaries here.
[Image via my Instagram feed]
Hire Me
“A Swiss Army knife.” That’s how one client described me. I’ve done a lot of things. I’m a writer, an editor, and an executive coach. I have over 20 years of experience helping global companies grow their revenue, launch brand campaigns, and increase digital engagement. And, as a c-suite consultant, I’ve worked with corporate executives as a force multiplier for their strategic initiatives.
Here’s what I do:
I’m a writer
I’ve written for Forbes, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, The Daily Beast, Slate, Salon, and Newsweek, among many other print and digital publications. I’ve covered the Great Recession’s impact on the adult industry, Paul Manafort’s $15,000 ostrich jacket, and a $350 dinner at Grant Achatz’s Chicago restaurant Next featuring canard à la presse. I’ve done investigative journalism, personal essays, and cultural criticism. In 2008, TIME named my blog one of the year’s best, and I’ve been called a “rare commodity online.” As a copywriter, I’ve worked with Publicis Groupe’s MSLGROUP and Weber Shandwick, creating content and commercials for some of the world’s biggest brands—among them: Scope, Oscar Mayer, and Crest; ghost-tweeting for celebrities; and voicing Pepto-Bismol on Facebook, where I increased social media engagement by 500% as market share rose 11%.
I’m an editor
From 2018 to 2019, I was the editor of Forbes Vices. I helped build out the digital vertical, recruiting, editing, and managing a global team of contributors who cover the business of vice, including gambling, sex, cannabis, drugs, guns, alcohol, and food. From 2008 to 2011, I was an editor for Time Warner’s The Frisky, a digital vertical for 18-to-34-year-old women, where I managed contributors, wrote nearly 1,400 posts, and created and directed the online outreach program, growing the site from startup to 4M unique visitors and 22M page views a month.
I’m an executive coach
As an executive coach, I help corporate leaders create strategic plans that drive revenue and increase profits. My expertise includes branding, media relations, strategy, and mergers and acquisitions. The majority of my clients are c-suite executives leading global companies with revenues in excess of $50M.
Want to hire me? Learn more here or email me here. Subscribe to my newsletter. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read The Hustler Diaries here.
[Photo credit: Clayton Cubitt]
Tripping
From Dangerous Minds: “[A]t best they suggest that the reader could possibly get a contact high with just a flick through their pages.” Research for the book I’m writing. Filed under Pulp / Fiction / Covers / LSD. Found here.
What to Watch
If you haven’t seen “Wormwood,” watch it. Errol Morris. Netflix. The CIA.
Week in Review
This week, I:
Had a Skype audition with a reality TV casting director
Posted more pandemic fictions
Updated this blog daily
Wrote a short story and submitted it to an online publication, which rejected it
Was approached by a producer to create a pitch for a podcast episode, which was rejected
Was rejected for a national fellowship I applied to months ago
Continued reading Jerry Saltz’s How to be an Artist
Started doing yoga again
Posted a series of freelance writing tips to LinkedIn
Worked on a book and a podcast that I can’t talk about yet
Support what I do! Buy a copy of my digital short story: THE TUMOR.
The Umbrella
Lisa Lyon, 1980, Robert Mapplethorpe
Recently, the Getty Museum put out a call for people to select their favorite artwork from the collection and recreate it with three items found around the house. I chose Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1980 portrait of Lisa Lyon.
Me, 2020, Susannah Breslin
Want to support what I do? Buy a copy of my digital short story: THE TUMOR.